This tutorial was written by the wonderful and talented Naimah. Once you’ve read it through, you should be able to apply this technique to different pictures and use different colors!

Painted Highlights Tutorial by Naimah

- Begin by downloading the fireworks image: http://icecaves.net/photography/download.php?id=1246846489. Open it in Photoshop (I’m using CS4). I resized the image to 500 x 667.

- Go to Image –> Adjustments –> Color Balance. Type this in “Color Levels”–> -100, +100, +82. For “Tone Balance” click on the “Highlights” button. Press Ok!

- Duplicate this image. Go to Filter –> Brush Strokes –> Accented Edges. Edge Width = 5, Edge Brightness = 0, and Smoothness = 15. Press Ok! Set this layer’s Opacity to 62%.

- Finally, the gradient. Create a new layer. Choose these colors for your Foreground and Background. Foreground = #9dafff, Background = #235caa. Choose the gradient tool and use these two colors as a gradient. Choose the default linear gradient and click the top of the image and drag the mouse in a straight line to the bottom of the image. If you want the line to be really straight, press and hold the “shift” key on your keyboard after clicking and holding your gradient. Let go of the mouse click before releasing the hold on the “shift” key. Set the blending mode for this layer to “Hue”.

And tada!! We’re all done! Looks quite nifty if you ask me!